Alfred Russel Wallace’s Bicentennial Year: A Cause for Celebration and for Sadness

Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Berry, Arthur Conan Doyle, bicentennial, Charles Smith, Chemistry, Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, cosmology, Darwinism (book), Elusive Victorian, Evolution, George Beccaloni, Heretic in Darwin’s Court, In Darwin’s Shadow, intelligent cause, Intelligent Design, intelligent evolution, James T. Costa, Lord Rayleigh, Man’s Place in the Universe, Martin Fichman, Michael Shermer, Nature's Prophet, Origin of Species, Peter Raby, Radical by Nature, Revolt of Democracy, Richard Dawkins, Ross A. Slotten, Social Environment and Moral Progress, spiritualism, that biology, The Geographical Distribution of Animals, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Wonderful Century, The World of Life, Tropical Nature, Usk, Wales, William Crookes, William Fletcher Barrett, William James, William Paley
All the hyperbole shows the fix is in — Wallace has been made safe for scientism and Darwinian reductionism. The academy can breathe easy. Source
Read More

A “Prepared Mind” for Alfred Russel Wallace

"survival of the fittest", A. P. Mead, Alfred Russel Wallace, At the Edge of History, Charles Darwin, Darwinian evolution, Evolution, Intelligent Design, intelligent evolution, liberals, Loren Eiseley, Louis Pasteur, M. R. A. Chance, Meaning, natural selection, Pithecanthropus, purpose, The World of Life, William Irwin Thompson
Although Wallace receded into the deep recesses of my memory, I had what Pasteur called “the prepared mind.” Source
Read More

For Labor Day Weekend: Alfred Russel Wallace, Scientist and Working Man

Alfred Russel Wallace, Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life, beetles, butterflies, Charles Darwin, Evolution, Indiana Jones, Intelligent Design, intelligent evolution, Janet Browne, Labor Day, Lepidoptera, livelihood, Michael Flannery, Robert Darwin, Robert McCormick, summer, The Beagle, The World of Life
Take a moment to consider the impact of labor on the development of evolutionary theory. Source
Read More

Historian and Nature’s Prophet Author Michael Flannery Reviews the Reviewers

Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Evolution, Harvard University, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Michael Keas, natural selection, natural theology, Nature's Prophet, Podcast, random variation, ruling intelligence, scientism, The World of Life
On a new episode of ID the Future, Michael Flannery speaks again with host Mike Keas about his book Nature’s Prophet: Alfred Russel Wallace, and His Evolution from Natural Selection to Natural Theology. Wallace was the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection along with Charles Darwin, but in 1869 he broke with Darwin, disagreeing with him on the origin of special human attributes like art, music, and abstract thought. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Seeing how distinctive humans are from other animals, and after determining that the mechanism of random variation and natural selection was inadequate to explain the origin of those distinctive qualities, Wallace concluded that the origin of our species required a special ruling intelligence to explain our appearance. He dissented from his day’s version…
Read More